ATLANTA – Georgia Chief Justice Harold Melton will step down from the state Supreme Court effective July 1, Melton announced Friday.
In a statement to court staff and the Georgia Judicial Council, Melton said he doesn’t know what he’s going to do next.
“July 31 will mark my 30th year working in state government, 16 years with the Court,” Melton said. “This fall, all of our three children will be attending college at the same time. Now is the best time for me to explore opportunities for the next season of life that will allow me to best serve our legal community and my extended family.
“I do not now know what my next move will be. With this announcement, I can begin the search process in earnest.”
Melton will be leaving one year and two months before his four-year term as chief justice comes to an end. He was appointed to the Supreme Court in 2005 by then-Gov. Sonny Perdue, who he had served as executive counsel, and became chief justice in 2018.
“It has not been easy to decide the best time to leave a job with a mission that I believe in and people I love working with,” Melton said to court staff.
“We have done great work together for the benefit of the citizens of this great state, and this Court is well-positioned to continue the high calling that has clearly been set before us.”
ATLANTA – Legislation that would tap into a new source of funding to expand broadband service in Georgia got some pushback this week from the telecom industry.
Senate Bill 65 would convert a portion of a state fund that now subsidizes land-line service provided by rural telephone companies into a pot of money to be used for broadband projects. That portion of the Universal Access Fund (UAF) is due to expire later this year, a decade after the fund was created.
Funds from the UAF would supplement the $20 million Gov. Brian Kemp set aside for broadband in the $26.5 billion mid-year budget the General Assembly passed on Thursday, said Sen. Steve Gooch, R-Dahlonega, the bill’s chief sponsor.
“Twenty million dollars … is a good start,” Gooch told members of the Senate Regulated Industries Committee Thursday. “But we need to put more money into this year after year until the problem is fixed.”
Lobbyists representing telecom giants including AT&T and small rural telephone companies agreed that expanding broadband into the many unserved areas of rural Georgia is critical to the state’s economy. But they said raiding the UAF is unnecessary.
“There are many federal government programs doling out substantial amounts of funding to spread broadband,” said Kevin Curtin, assistant vice president of legislative affairs for AT&T Georgia.
One such federal program was launched by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in December. The FCC’s Rural Digital Opportunity Fund is allocating $9.2 billion during the next 10 years to broadband deployment in 49 states, including $326.5 million headed to Georgia.
Others argued lawmakers should look to the state’s general fund budget to support broadband projects, as Kemp just did with the $20 million allocation.
“We want to continue to try to bring broadband to every Georgia citizen,” said Hunter Hopkins, interim executive director of the Georgia Cable Association. “Let’s just put more money in the general fund versus tinkering with the UAF.”
Some members of the committee also were skeptical of the bill.
Committee Chairman Bill Cowsert, R-Athens, wondered whether the rural phone companies would raise their rates after the UAF expires and they’re no longer receiving subsidies from it.
“[Are] poor people in rural areas who already don’t have broadband going to get their phone rates jacked up?” Cowsert asked.
Sen. Lindsey Tippins, R-Marietta, said converting a portion of the UAF to a broadband fund might not raise much money because many Georgians are getting rid of their land-lines telephones in favor of cellphones.
“You’re talking about a decreasing pool of revenue,” Tippins said.
Gooch’s bill has 20 Republican cosponsors, including Cowsert, Tippins and Senate President Pro Tempore Butch Miller, R-Gainesville.
But since Thursday’s debate was limited to a hearing on the measure, its fate remains uncertain.
ATLANTA – First-time unemployment claims in Georgia rose slightly last week, even as claims nationwide declined, the state Department of Labor reported Thursday.
Jobless Georgians filed 32,386 initial claims last week, up 5,171 from the week before.
Since the coronavirus pandemic struck Georgia 11 months ago, the state has paid out more than $18 billion to nearly 4.4 million Georgians, more than the last nine years prior to the pandemic.
The labor department paid out more than $400 million last week as the agency continued to implement the latest COVID-19 economic stimulus package Congress passed at the end of last year.
Meanwhile, Georgia finished out 2020 with a workforce of more than 4.5 million jobs, more than doubling the monthly jobs number from November to December.
“Georgia is one of the leading states in the country in job creation,” state Commissioner of Labor Mark Butler said. “We created 44,700 jobs in December 2020, only being outdone by Texas.”
The job sector accounting for the most first-time unemployment claims last week in Georgia was accommodation and food services with 7,095 claims. The administrative and support services job sector was next with 3,617 claims, followed by health care and social assistance with 3,581.
More than 183,000 jobs are listed online at https://bit.ly/36EA2vk for Georgians to access. The labor department offers online resources for finding a job, building a resume, and assisting with other reemployment needs.
State Sen. Clint Dixon (R-Buford) discusses his bills on protections for human-trafficking victims in the Georgia Senate chamber on Feb. 11, 2021. (Photo by Beau Evans)
The Georgia Senate passed two bills Thursday aimed at protecting victims of human trafficking, advancing a key plank of Gov. Brian Kemp’s legislative agenda.
One bill sponsored by state Sen. Clint Dixon, R-Buford, would allow human-trafficking victims to sue their traffickers in civil court for monetary damages.
The other bill, also sponsored by Dixon, would shield human-trafficking victims from public scrutiny if they seek to legally change their names by keeping name-change petitions under seal.
Dixon, a freshman who is one of the governor’s floor leaders in the Senate, said the governor-backed bills aim to protect some of the state’s most vulnerable community members.
“This is an issue that’s crucial to my county and yours … and will help victims of human trafficking,” Dixon said.
Both bills passed unanimously and now head to the House for more voting. Kemp will likely sign them into law should they pass the General Assembly.
The governor has made fighting human trafficking a priority since taking office in 2019, charging the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to crack down harder on traffickers through a multi-agency task force. He also tasked his wife, First Lady Marty Kemp, to lead the trafficking-focused GRACE Commission.
Dixon’s bills follow legislation passed last year that toughened penalties for commercial drivers with human-trafficking criminal convictions and allowed victims to clear their court records of any offenses stemming from activities while they were being trafficked.
Kemp’s agenda this year also includes legislation requiring anyone who seeks a new or renewed commercial driver’s license in Georgia to complete a human-trafficking awareness course.
State officials created a new hotline last September for Georgians to alert law enforcement officers of sexual or labor exploitation and to receive help for victims. Thousands of state government employees have also taken a trafficking-awareness course during the past year on how to spot abuse.
The number for the state’s human-trafficking hotline is 1-866-ENDHTGA.
ATLANTA – The General Assembly gave final passage Thursday to a $26.5 billion fiscal 2021 mid-year budget that covers state spending through June 30.
The state House of Representatives passed the spending plan 165-4. The Georgia Senate then approved it unanimously less than an hour later.
While lawmakers signed off on most of the spending recommendations Gov. Brian Kemp made last month, legislative leaders worked with the governor to add $60 million to provide one-time $1,000 raises to more than 57,000 state employees earning less than $80,000 per year.
According to a statement the University System of Georgia released Friday, income-eligible system employees also will receive the bonuses.
Kemp’s original mid-year budget already had earmarked $1,000 raises for Georgia teachers and school staff including cafeteria workers, custodians and resource personnel.
Front-line state workers including public health nurses, troopers, road crews and child welfare caseworkers deserve raises after stepping up during the coronavirus pandemic, said House Appropriations Committee Chairman Terry England.
“They don’t have the option to only be virtual,” said England, R-Auburn. “They have to have face-to-face contact. … Their jobs aren’t glamorous. But they’re there every day.”
Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Blake Tillery, R-Vidalia, said the $1,000 bonuses will be funded by a mix of federal dollars and savings from higher Medicaid payments the federal government has been making amid the pandemic.
The mid-year budget, which now heads to Kemp for his signature, restores $567 million of $950 million in cuts to K-12 schools the General Assembly imposed last year as state tax revenues slowed due to the economic impact of the pandemic. Another $73.6 million will go to restore cuts lawmakers made to the University System of Georgia.
The legislature also supported the governor’s recommendation for $20 million to expand broadband service in rural Georgia.
As the mid-year spending plan went through the review process, lawmakers added funds to support 10% raises for correctional officers in both the state prison and juvenile detention systems to help stem alarming turnover rates.
The final version of the mid-year budget also includes additions of $40 million to buy 520 new school buses and $11 million in bond funds repurposed to help the state Department of Public Health train workers in providing COVID-19 vaccines and vaccine reservations.
Lawmakers added $3 million to the $1 million already appropriated to help Georgia’s tourism industry recover following the pandemic. Most of the additional funds will go to the Georgia World Congress Center, which lost all of its convention business to the virus, England said.
The House and Senate also agreed to add $455,000 for domestic violence and assault centers and set aside $100,000 to help the Georgia Department of Labor deal with a huge influx of unemployment claims brought on by the pandemic. The money will be used to hire a chief labor officer to oversee claims and financial audits.
